A fortnight ago I had the privilege of attending AlaveteliCon 2015 in Madrid. It’s the conference about online Freedom of Information (FOI) technologies named after Alaveteli, the open source software that runs Right To Know. Looking back it was a huge two days packed with sessions on every important aspect of running FOI request sites. […]
Three months ago we announced that you would need to get an API key to use the PlanningAlerts API. We gave you lots of time to transition. We made the use of an API key optional during this transition period. Now, as the start of June has passed, we’ve made the use of the API […]
Right To Know, our Freedom of Information project, already makes requesting information under FOI super easy. So far you’ve only been able to request information from the Federal Government but now you’re also able to request information from the ACT Government using Right to Know. This change is great for people who are interested in the goings on […]
One in four people who visit Right To Know use a mobile device to do so. Unfortunately the site hasn’t been designed for them. They’ve been forced to zoom in on the page designed for desktop users. This made it hard to navigate, quickly understand what a page is about, and request information. When traffic […]
Just a quick post to let you know that it’s now possible to scrape javascript heavy sites easily using our scraping platform morph.io. This is really useful with Microsoft .NET web sites that often use complicated states stored in javascript with links simulated via javascript posts. Also, we recently discovered another more worrying example. The […]
Starting today, we’re beginning to roll out a change to the way the PlanningAlerts API works. We’re introducing API keys for all users of the API from low-volume non-commercial users to high-volume commercial users. We are making this change so that we can better measure and understand the way people are using the API as […]
Keeping They Vote For You up to date can seem a little challenging. So, I’ve prioritised the three most important jobs to make it easier for people to get involved. If these three tasks are done regularly by enough people, the site will remain tickety boo (which is urban slang for ‘useful and current’). 1. […]
Following on from some recent queries on Twitter, I thought it was a good idea to sit down and provide a guide on some of the ways you can keep in touch with a request on Right to Know. Right to Know is a simple, free service provided by the OpenAustralia Foundation that takes the […]
On Saturday Luke and I were really glad to be invited on FBi radio’s excellent Backchat programme. You can listen to the podcast here: Thanks for having us, FBi!
For the last three and a half months I’ve been working with the OpenAustralia Foundation to design their latest project, They Vote For You. For me, as always, this was a broad interpretation of the role “designer”: digging into functionality, language, information architecture, appearance, feeling, right down to the purpose and direction of the site. […]
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